Category Archives: April – Short Stories on the Train Commute

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant – A Short Story Review

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This was another book on the top 50 short story list I found. After reading the story I remember having heard of it. A poor, yet beautiful woman borrows a “diamond necklace” from her friend so she won’t look poor at a ball. She has an amazing time escaping her poverty, if at least for one night being the object of affection. Then once her and her husband returned to their shabby apartment she realized that she had lost the necklace. Her and her husband then bought a replacement and spent the next 10 years paying off the debt they had incurred. The irony was that after 10 years she finally told her friend what had happened, only to be told that the diamond necklace was actually a fake and cost only 500 francs, not 36,000 francs. Bummer.

This story is more than just the necklace itself. The necklace is symbolic of envy and the story describes what can happen when envy gets the best of us. They spent 10 years of their life in debt, sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? The average American with a credit card is over $10,700 in consumer debt at any given time (doesn’t include things like mortgages). My home state of Maine is among the worst in the country with almost $20,000 of consumer debt per person on average. Yikes. Even though this story was written in the 19th century, it still rings true today.

About the Author Guy de Maupassant:
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form’s finest exponents. A protégé of Flaubert, Maupassant’s stories are characterized by their economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouement. Many of the stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the conflict, emerge changed. He authored some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. The story “Boule de Suif” (“Ball of Fat”, 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece. His most unsettling horror story, “Le Horla” (1887), was about madness and suicide. (Courtesy of Amazon.com)

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The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry – A Short Story Review

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This story came recommended by a family member, so I knew the story would be a bit quirky but in the end very well done. The story was about two desperate men who plotted a kidnapping with the goal of getting a ransom. They carefully picked the richest man in town, a mortgage financier, and stole his child, bringing him out of town to a mountain cave where they were unlikely to be found. Little did they know that they were kidnapping a hellion.

The kid immediately started playing Indians where he was Red Chief, the terror of the plains while his two captives were Old Hank, the Trapper, and Snake-Eye the Spy. The kid beat up on Old Hank pretty good when Snake-Eye would leave to take care of business. He gave him cuts, bruises, and eventually tried to scalp him the following morning. He also put a red-hot potato down his back and kicked it, mushing the burning potato into his skin. It became increasingly evident that little Red Chief had no intentions of going home and things were getting worse by the minute for the kidnappers.

They wrote an elaborate ransom note for $1500, taking $500 off their initial price because they simply wanted to get rid of this kid. The rebuttal note they got back from the kids father basically said, “Hey I’ll cut you a deal, if you bring the kid back and give me $250, I’ll agree to take him off your hands for you.” They were blown away that the kids father would demand money instead of pay it out. However, things were getting desperate, the kid was playing David and Goliath and slinging rocks at Old Hank’s head. Finally they decided the only way to get rid of this kid was to pay out the cash. So they brought him back home, paid the $250, and ran out of town as fast as possible.

I liked this story because it was very simple yet with a plot I didn’t expect. It’s definitely a story you could tell to a younger child because its plot, characters, language, etc are easy to digest. It has adventure, danger, and mischief with a twist plot. I definitely recommend reading it, especially reading it to a younger sibling/neice/nephew/son/daughter/etc.

About the Author O. Henry:
William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer. O. Henry’s short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings. (Courtesy of Amazon.com)

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving – A Short Story Review

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I had grown up familiar with the story of the Headless Horseman, Ichabod Crane, and Sleep Hollow. However I had never actually read the story itself. Out of a 39 page story, it took about 33 pages to get to the climax where Ichabod finally goes toe to toe the Headless Horseman. I had no idea there was a such a back story, all you ever hear about is the end result.

Ichabod Crane was a schoolteacher from Connecticut and was teaching in Tarrytown, just North of New York City and just outside of Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow was described as having a dream-like quality to it with no shortage of haunting tales with ghosts and goblins running amok at the witching hour. “It breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land.” Ichabod had fallen in love with a girl who’s family owned much of the land around Sleepy Hollow (he lived just on the other side of the Hollow). Ichabod attended a party, stayed late after all the guests had left, and unfortunately he was shut down by the love of his life. Distraught he took off on his horse to head back home. It was then that he realized that he would have to ride through Sleepy Hollow during the witching hour where it was known that the Headless Horseman could appear.

Eventually he meets up with the Headless Horseman and once it was clear that the Horseman wasn’t going to leave Ichabod alone, they had an all out race for the bridge that led out of Sleepy Hollow. It is said that the Headless Horseman bursts into flames when he crosses the bridge and cannot follow you on the other side. He’s always looking for another head, so he will chase people down to try and take theirs before they reach the bridge. Just as they were approaching the bridge at full speed, the Headless Horseman wound up and threw a pumpkin at Ichabod, hitting him square in the back of the head, and knocking him out cold and off the horse.

Ichabod was never seen again. The only remnants were his horse, his cap, and a shattered pumpkin on the ground just before the bridge. Some say he moved out of town in shame of being shut down by the love of his life but most say that the Headless Horseman took his head, claiming yet another victim on the road through Sleepy Hollow.

About the Author Washington Irving:
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle”, both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of George Washington, Oliver Goldsmith and Muhammad, and several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra. Irving also served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846. He made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the Morning Chronicle, written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. After moving to England for the family business in 1815, he achieved international fame with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in… (Courtesy of Amazon.com)

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The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde – A Short Story Review

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It seemed almost as if this story was meant to be told orally. It was also told in a way that seemed fairy-tale esque with repetitive language and talking flowers, trees, insects, and birds. The gist of the short story is that a student is in love with a girl. The girl told him she would only dance with him if he brought her a red rose. He agonized over not having a rose for his true love. This agonizing was heard by the animals and trees around his house and it was especially heard by the Nightingale. So the Nightingale flew around from tree to tree to find a red rose so the student could please his true love. It found a white rose tree, a yellow rose tree, and finally found a red rose tree but it was dead from the winter’s frost. To each tree the Nightingale said that for the price of a rose it would sing to the tree its most beautiful song but the red rose tree just could not flower this year. There was however a way to make it flower but it would cost the Nightingale its life. In order to make the flower blossom, the Nightingale would have to sing all night under the moon and pierce its own heart with the rose’s thorn.  The song and blood of the Nightingale was the only way to make a red rose grow and bloom. The Nightingale decided that the cost of its life was worth the cost of true love so it sacrificed its life for the Student. The sacrifice was all for naught however, because when the Student presented the rose to his true love, she turned him away saying another boy had brought her jewels which were obviously worth more than that of a rose. The boy then threw the rose on the ground where it was run over by a cart.  Cursing the logic of love he walked away to continue his studies.

As I said earlier, I really liked the way this story was told. It was a bit fanciful in that the animals and trees could speak to one another and a bit fair-tale-esque with talks of true love, sacrifice, and death. It is a story that could easily be memorized and retold orally.

About the Author Oscar Wilde:
Oscar Fingall O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford where, a disciple of Pater, he founded an aesthetic cult. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, and his two sons were born in 1885 and 1886.  His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and social comedies Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), established his reputation. In 1895, following his libel action against the Marquess of Queesberry, Wilde was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for homosexual conduct, as a result of which he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and his confessional letter De Profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897 he lived in obscurity in Europe, and died in Paris in 1900. (Courtesy of Amazon.com)

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